Female Friendship in Contemporary Japanese Love Novels
| Date and time: | June 23, 2016 (Thur.), 3:00PM-4:30PM |
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| Venue: | Meeting Room 2 (3rd Floor), Institute of Advanced Studies on Asia, the University of Tokyo |
Speaker: Luciana Sanga (PhD Candidate, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University)
Abstract:In 2002, “Katagoshi no koibito (Sweetheart Over My Shoulder)” was awarded the Naoki Prize. The author, Yuikawa Kei, made her debut in the pages of Cobalt magazine, a publication targeted at teenage girls. During the 1980s, she was one of the best known writers of girls’ novels. Her 1980s novels feature young female protagonists who value their friendship with other girls more than romantic love. In fact, the idea that female friendship is stronger than love has been one of the themes pursued in various ways in girls novels, from the pre-war period to the 1980s Cobalt novels. In this presentation, I will use Yuikawa Kei’s novel to discuss the following: (1) the relation between girls’ novels and love novels, (2) the concept of romantic love in contemporary Japan, and (3) the influence of girls’ novels on contemporary Japanese literature in general.
Organizer: Institute of Advanced Studies on Asia, the University of Tokyo